


cause=time

by demotu



Series: post hoc [1]
Category: Torchwood
Genre: Community: redismycolour, Gen, M/M, Prompt Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-01-16
Updated: 2009-01-16
Packaged: 2018-02-07 22:13:25
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 744
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1915776
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/demotu/pseuds/demotu
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Conversations under the Ferris Wheel.</p>
            </blockquote>





	cause=time

**Author's Note:**

> Response to day one of the [redismycolour](http://redismycolour.livejournal.com/) prompt challenge. Title from the broken social scene song.

His fingers were freezing. He switched hands and shoved the first one into his pocket, remembering why he gave this up in the first place. Too damn inconvenient. Expensive, too, but fuck if vices weren’t part of the budget when you were eighteen.  
  
“I didn’t know you smoked.”  
  
“I don’t.”  
  
A hand reached out and plucked the cigarette from his lips. Ianto shot Jack an irritated look and fished into his pocket for the pack. He drew out another and lit it wordlessly, fumbling a little in the cold.  
  
Jack took a long drag of his prize, then tilted his head back to puff a series of smoke circles into the air.  
  
“The conclusion doesn’t follow,” Jack murmured.  
  
“Pardon?”  
  
“If you don’t smoke,” Jack said, waving his cigarette in an elegant and concise flourish, “you wouldn’t be smoking.”  
  
“Regularly. I don’t smoke regularly.”  
  
“Obviously,” Jack said drily.  
  
Ianto scowled, kicking at the dirt with the toes of his boots, careful not to scuff the leather.   
  
“Gonna tell me why you’re here? Pissed off and inhaling poisonous gas and watching people who can’t skate fall on their asses?”  
  
Ianto inhaled before blowing a cloud of smoke out across the artificial rink. “Sometimes I don’t think I can do this anymore.”  
  
Jack stilled beside him. “Smoking? Torchwood?” he asked steadily. “Me?”  
  
Ianto set his elbows on the boards around the rink. A group of teenage girls in shiny, puffy coats shrieked by, clinging to each other and drawing less attention than they wanted.  
  
“Torchwood.”  
  
“Ah.” Jack stubbed the cigarette out on the edge of the board. “Torchwood and I are a package deal.”  
  
“I know.”  
  
A pause, and Jack seemed to collect himself, turning around to lean back against the boards, his eyes drifting up to watch the turn of the Ferris wheel. “Where’s this coming from?”  
  
Ianto ducked his head. The slice of blades along the ice, the carnival music and the distance screams of people on the tea-cup ride filled the silence before he spoke. “I saw Gwen, this afternoon.”  
  
“Yeah? And how is she?”  
  
“Good. Really good. She’s expecting her second.”  
  
Jack sucked in his cheeks, and yeah, Ianto knew that look, he thought sourly. Oh, Gwen. He loved her, but fuck if she hadn’t taken a part of Jack with her when she’d left.   
  
“She didn’t tell me.”  
  
“Well, no.” Ianto sucked on the cigarette. “Her life looked so familiar.”  
  
“How so?”  
  
“It’s the one I thought I would have had, once upon a time.”  
  
Jack nodded, still watching the Ferris wheel. It came to a still, letting passengers off and on, before jerking on to the next car.   
  
“So you want to try for a normal life,” Jack said evenly. “Go back to being a – a civilian.”  
  
“No.”  
  
That broke Jack’s composure and he swung round to face Ianto. “I – I thought.”  
  
Ianto could have laughed if it hadn’t been so pathetic. All the confidence in the world, Jack had, except Ianto never could get him to believe he wasn’t going anywhere. Not until some weevil got his claws too deep in his belly, at any rate.  
  
“I gave up that life,” he said with a shrug. “When I chose Torchwood, when I chose you. Properly.”  
  
“My ultimatum.”  
  
“Retcon or my devoted service,” Ianto said ironically, flourishing a little bow.  
  
Jack smiled faintly. “I wasn’t glad you stayed, at first.”  
  
“I won you over.”  
  
“Yeah. Yeah, you did. Ianto, if you’re not going anywhere…”  
  
Ianto sighed, turning to lean on the boards next to Jack.   
  
“There’s a world outside Torchwood,” he said, pointing to the crowd. He switched hands again, stuffing the other in his pocket. “I gave it up willingly, but that doesn’t mean I don’t wish for what I can’t have, sometimes.”  
  
“You could, still.”  
  
“No I couldn’t. There’s not enough retcon to make me forget it all, now.”  
  
Jack straightened up sharply. “Eight years.”  
  
Ianto rolled his head back, smiling at the dark sky. “Bingo.”  
  
“Eight years worth of retcon is the maximum dose before the drug kills you as well,” Jack recited. “I see.” He tapped his fingers against his thighs, looking sideways at Ianto. “You could leave without it. Gwen did.”  
  
“I’m not Gwen,” he said with a shrug. “I could never leave and remember it.”   
  
He dropped the fag, stepping forward and grinding it into the pavement with the heel of his boot, the embers extinguished into black.   
  
“I could never leave and remember you.”


End file.
